The Forward Day by Day Meditation for January 29, 2016

We post a Forward Day by Day Meditation for every day of the year - and we invite you to consider them and talk about them here. If you'd like to comment, please register for an account at Facebook. By checking the "Post to Facebook" box when commenting, you'll be able to find and quickly link back to this page from your Facebook account. You can also find the past week's Meditations in the box at right (or below, for mobile users), or search for previous entries on the Archives page.

Please note: you won't be able to use the Facebook Comment feature unless you enable Javascript in your browser. In general, your overall experience on the Daily Prayer site will be greatly enhanced if you enable Javascript.

FRIDAY, January 29

Psalm 40:1-2 I waited patiently upon the Lord; he stooped to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and clay; he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.

Every summer we’d sing this particular psalm in chapel at summer camp. It was U2’s version of this psalm, also called “40,” that the camp counselors played on their acoustic guitars. We’d sing the words with our arms around each other’s shoulders surrounded by the mesquite and live oak trees native to central Texas. The chorus, which is not part of the psalm, asks, “How long to sing this song?”

Listening to that chorus now, I hear both expectation and apprehension in those words: “How long? How long to sing this song?” Long after the psalms were written, and long after the stone was rolled away from the tomb, we still live with that expectation and apprehension, with that sense that the work of God has begun, but appears to be far from over. That sense of being in-between is a part of faith. It’s what drives us to work for a better world and also what leads us back to prayer and song on Sunday morning.